Late Saturday morning, Crystal and her mother sat around one of the small metal tables on the narrow patio in front of the Sunrise Cafe in San Clemente. Now and then, people walked up and down on the other side of the low railing separating sidewalk from dining area. Sometimes, they had dogs, which made the corners of Crystal’s lips twitch.

So far, that was more of a smile than her mother’s jovial banter managed to inspire.

“So, of course,” Pamla Dubois went on, “I told Wynne he could take the break, or explain to Ben why his punch report’s off.” Crystal could feel her mother’s eyes targeting her hard. “Guess what happened.”

Crystal sighed out, “Wynne took his break.”

“Damn right.” Pamla laughed. “Wynne took his break.”

Crystal frowned and dragged her blank gaze back to the scrambled eggs cooling on her plate. Just for shits and giggles, she adopted a carnival barker’s lilt when she repeated it. “Wynne took his break.” The practice had started as a joke, turned into an ironic affectation, and was becoming a habit.

And yet, Crystal had waited until Preston chose Tall Skinny Gail to be the proverbial straw that fucked the camel in the ass…

“Sorry,” she said.

Pamla’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s not what I meant. If this is what it took, that’s that. Could have been…” She shut her mouth. Shrugged. “Well. Anyway.”

Crystal flashed on a memory: police lights; neighbors gawking; bruises on her mother’s tanned legs and cuts on her hands; eye-level for a six year old little girl.

She knew her mother had stopped short of saying, “Could have been worse.” Worse like her dad. Worse like that fucking piece of shit Eric Finn.

But Preston wouldn’t have hit her. He didn’t have that kind of anger. Preston wasn’t angry at anything. And he’d never have the audacity to attempt date-rape. Preston didn’t have that kind of energy in him.

No, Preston just… presented.

She hated that her line of thinking had suddenly squeezed something tight behind her breastbone, something that threatened to push tears out of her eyes…

“Oh, look who it is!” Her mother focused past Crystal’s shoulder.

Crystal twisted around to see. Frank Parrish stood at the hostess table just outside the entrance of the cafe, a smaller, disheveled and tousled-haired guy in a denim jacket at his side.

Frank bent and wrote something on the wait list, straightened up, and saw them. He grinned, waved, bumped his friend on the shoulder, and they walked along the railing to stand next to Crystal and Pamla’s table.

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